Blog

We couldn’t do it without our volunteers

April 14, 2017

Hesperian depends on the labor of an energetic team of volunteers, who devote thousands of hours to every aspect of our work, from packing books to researching to fundraising. Our digital projects volunteers make building our HealthWiki possible: they proofread, code, design, manipulate images, translate and program. Their skills and time enable people to access Hesperian materials everywhere on tablets, cell phones, and other mobile devices.

Karen, who worked for years at the University of California at Berkeley, describes her motivation for volunteering with the digital projects team: “When you retire you have a lot of time, and I wanted to do something outside myself. It’s not just that I can do the digital Wiki work, but also that a lot of the work is in Spanish, and using that has been a personal ambition of mine.”

Bernadette Etienne-Millot Translations volunteer

Bernadette has been translating Hesperian materials — including Where Women Have No Doctor and A Book For Midwives — into French from her home in Washington, DC. “I’m so happy I’ve had a chance to work on these. Despite my work in developing countries and for developing countries, this is the one time I’m sure I’m making a difference. Providing access to this kind of knowledge is vital and I don’t think anyone else does it better.”

Hesperian volunteers are a dynamic group who come to us in all kinds of ways. Bernadette fell in love with Hesperian materials at a World Bank conference; Karen found us online. Hear other volunteers’ stories on our YouTube Page.

Volunteers are the reason why Hesperian can continue making materials in new languages and new formats available to the people around the world who need them so desperately. Our volunteers are the best people in the world, and we so appreciate them for donating their time and energy to the mostly invisible work of providing access to life-saving health information to all corners of the globe.

If you are interested in volunteering with Hesperian, we have opportunities in several areas of interest, including fundraising efforts, assistance with digitizing our Khmer translations and helping with other translation projects, and of course with digital projects. Check out our volunteer openings page for details and to learn more about volunteering with us.